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Show $77,000,000 IsValue of Ore Taken From the Mines of Utah in 1916 Increase Over 1915 Is 77 Per Cent,' According to Official Data Compiled by United States Geological Survey; Bingham Leads, While Tintic District Is Second. GOLD, silver, copper, lead and zinc, that sold in the market for $77,-000,000 $77,-000,000 in round numbers, were produced by the mines of Utah in the year 1916, according' to the figures fig-ures furnished aud estimates made by Victor C. Heikes of the United States geological survey, department of the interior. in-terior. This staggering amount is, as compared com-pared with approximately $42,000,000 for 1915, an increase ofB7" per cent. All of the metals above mentioned showed an increase in production, with record outputs of copper, lead and zinc. It was counted a big year in 1915, when 10,451,445 tons of ore were mined, but this was far overshadowed in llb, for the estimate shows about 14,000,000 tons mined during the year. The report shows that the mines at Bingham alone produced more than 12,-000.000 12,-000.000 tons of this ore, largely porphyry por-phyry copper, the output of t he U tab. Copper company, handled almoet entirely entire-ly by steam shovel mining. I Tintic Shipments. Outside of 'BiDgham the largest ship-i ship-i per of ores was Tintic, where the output out-put is estimated at 500.000 tons, an increase in-crease of more than one-third over 1915, the estimate not including several thousand thou-sand tons of old dumps and tailings that were milled in the Tintic district. In the Cottonwood and American Fork districts it is stated that about 47,000 tons of shipping ore was produced during the year, of which about one-i one-i half was hauled by wagon to the smelt-j smelt-j ers. Park City made a gain in the volume ! of shipping ores, but with concentrates i from the three ore mills and two big tailings plants has a total of about 00,-000 00,-000 tons, a slight decrease in volume 'from the tonnage of last year, although the increase in the value of the product : far more than overbalances the diminished dimin-ished total tonnage. Dumps Worked Over. At Frisco and Newhonse, in Beaver ! county, new mills were erected to work i over the old tailings dumps that con-' I tain a low percentage of copper, lead and zinc, and these concentrates, -with j the ore shipped from the different mines j of Beaver county, aggregated 65.000 j tons, an increase of more than 45.000 i tons over the Beaver county output of 19.15. While the ore output from Tooele countv was principally from the Ophir and Stockton camps, the smaller districts dis-tricts of Dug-way, Columbia and Erick-son Erick-son were also to 'be reckoned with, the total amounting f0 126,000 tons, including includ-ing the milling ore of the Ophir and Bullion Coalition properties. There was an increase, according to the report, of 14,000 tons of ore, as compared with the total output in 1915. There was a slight increase in the eold output, the figures showing $3,-60S.109 $3,-60S.109 for 1915, as compared to $3.-b'47,000 $3.-b'47,000 in 1916. It is stated that most of the increase came from the gold taken from the copper ores, as the gold-producing gold-producing districts of the state are not active, although small quantities came from Bull Vallev, Sheep Rock, the Annie Laurie and the West Mercur. The piacer gold of the state is held to be negligible negli-gible in quantity. More Silver Mined. While not keeping pace with the gain in copper, lead and zinc, the production pro-duction of silver was 8 per cent greater this vear than last, the figures showing show-ing 13, 647.000 ounces in 1916; compared with 12,313,205 in 1915, an increase in value of $2,500,000. The Ontario of Park City is producing silver ore of shipping grade, and Mr. Heikfcs points out that a large increase may be expected ex-pected from Cottonwood districts. The belief is expressed that in the Tintic district the silver ores will profit by the chlorodizing roasting process, which has been put into successful operation for the treatment of ores and dump material mate-rial from the Iron Blossom, Dragon and I Black Jack mines, as the precipitates containing high silver were produced, averagiug a car a month before the roasting plant had been trebled in ca-pacitv. ca-pacitv. In 'dealing with the lead, copper and zinc production the report of Mr. Heikes says: Copper production in Utah broke all records, increasing from 187,-hTl.lSS 187,-hTl.lSS pounds in 1915 to 24.2,000,-000 24.2,000,-000 pounds in 1Q16, an increase of 20 per cent in quantity and over $33,000,000 in value. Kept Railroads Busy. The gigantic, operations by steam fJhovel at tbe great porphyry copper mine of the Utah Copper comnanv kept two railroad lines busy hauling haul-ing an average of 31,000 tons of ore dallv to its two concentration mills at' Garfield, fifteen miles distant. dis-tant. There were days when the ore hauled exceeded 40,000 tons. At Lark the Ohio Copper mill operated on low-grade copper ores from its mine, which was in the bauds of lessees. Lead production also surpassed all former records, increasing from 199,067,437 pounds in 1915 to more than 215,000,000 pounds in 1916. the increase amounting to about 7 per cent in quantity and more than $5.-000,000 $5.-000,000 in value. A large increase in the output of lead was' made from the mines at Bingham. The principal princi-pal producers were the Utah Apex, United States, Highland Boy, New Haven and Dulton & Lard properties. proper-ties. The production of lead from the Tiotic and Park City districts will not be much greater than in 1915. Zinc Price Broke. Prices for zinc continued high duriug the early part of the year, and much ore and concentrate containing con-taining the metal was marketed, but the price broke in Ma' and was low in June, when a general falling off of the production was noticeable notice-able until the markets became settled. set-tled. Altogether there were produced pro-duced about 29,000.000 pounds of metallic zinc by thirty-nine producers, pro-ducers, against' 24,292,240 pounds by thirty -four producers in 1915. The increase in value was nearly $1,000,000. No new- zinc districts were opened in 1916, and the largest deposits of the higher grade ores were about depleted in several districts. dis-tricts. Some spelter was recovered electrolytically at one experimental plant, and another was about to start at the end of the year, is operators expecting to run it permanently. perma-nently. All the smelting plants Murray, Garfield, Midvale and International In-ternational were operating at full capacity the entire year. Dividends were paid by twenty-two twenty-two mining companies, amounting to about $24,404,320, as against $9,S27,524 in 1915. |
